Intercultural Competence Toolkit

Wondering how to engage students of vastly different economic, social, racial, and cultural backgrounds in the classroom? Interested in becoming more skilled at communicating across cultures? This collaborative webpage offers resources, strategies and activities to develop intercultural competence.

Key Concepts

Both intercultural competence and cultural humility presume that it is not possible to become competent in someone else's culture. Instead, they focus on the lifelong learning that begins with understanding of one's own cultural positionality.

Intercultural Competence

A set of cognitive, affective and behavioral skills and characteristics that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts*.

Cognitive

Affective

Behavioral

Cultural self-awareness

Curiosity

Relationship building

Culture-general knowledge

Cognitive flexibility

Listening, problem solving

Culture-specific knowledge

Motivation

Empathy

Interaction analysis

Open mindedness

Information gathering

Bennett's (2008) definition of intercultural competence has been developed by the Association of American Colleges and University (AAC&U) into the Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE rubric.

Cultural Humility

Originating in the healthcare field, cultural humility is an approach to engaging with others that requires self-reflection and self-critique, includes the desire to fix power imbalances where none ought to exist, and involves aspiring to develop partnerships with people and groups who advocate for others (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998^).

Cultural Iceberg

Like an iceberg, only a fraction of culture is visible, manifested through customs, language, physical appearance. The majority of culture is hidden from view and expressed implicitly, through deep-held values and preferences.

The iceberg analogy was first proposed by Edward T. Hall in his 1976 book, Beyond Culture.

This simple activity is a great way to engage participants in a conversation about cultural values and appreciate how these relate to others. It can be done as an individual, written reflection, or be “acted out” by participants lining up along imaginary continuums.

Classroom strategies to increase engagement of culturally diverse students

While mainstream American academic culture prizes individual accomplishments and promotes an egalitarian treatment of others, individuals from many other cultures find it highly awkward to be singled out in front of a group, challenge their instructor, or call their superior by their first name. To increase engagement of culturally diverse students, try these specific classroom strategies, developed by a group of faculty and staff from the University of Washington Bothell and Cascadia College during a workshop in October 2013, and during the Teaching in Progress Series in Spring 2017:

Set clear expectations - via your syllabus, a collaboratively-developed community agreement, and modeling desired behaviors - for class participation and the value of sharing cultural perspectives.

Take time to get to know students as individuals, e.g. have students complete a short questionnaire or notecard during the first week of class; use nametags with gender pronouns throughout the quarter.

Think > pair > share.

Vary forms of classroom participation, including: working in dyads and small groups before reporting out to large group; using clickers; utilizing responses from course website/discussion board during in-class discussions; having students write individual contracts that allocate points based on categories of skills they want to develop.

Communicate on an individual level, e.g.require students (or give them specific incentives) to sign up for office hours during the first 2-3 weeks; walk around the room to engage with students or student groups on a more individual basis.

Arrange seats in a circle and pass around a "talking" object.

Plan time for reflection before soliciting responses from the class, e.g. assign a free-writing prompt to stimulate thinking.

Raise the status of students with lower language skills.

Use show and tell activities to highlight culture, e.g. incorporate “artifacts” in e-portfolios.

Be intentional in the design of groups or assignments, e.g. assign specific roles; use playing cards to assign students to groups randomly.

Resources compiled by Young-Kyung Min, PhD, former Lecturer in the UW Bothell Education Program, highlight culturally diverse approaches to writing, organizing ideas, and issues such as plagiarism. They are intended to help instructors better understand the non-native speakers of English in their classrooms and provide tools to address their specific needs.